"Every major release of the 4.x series of Xfce has been pretty major. 4.0 was the result of over a years work, a major rewrite of the entire desktop. 4.2 saw the introduction of major features and enhancements that were incomplete for 4.0, and new developers as Xfce4 gained popularity. 4.4 is going to be a major upgrade to Xfce, with new components, major upgrades to old ones, and more tools for developers. So, without further ado, let's take a look at what's coming."

What we mean is that we're taking the shortcut editor out of the WM. In short, we're making the WM _smaller_ while not getting rid of that functionality _at all_

"Now, I have all that, PLUS each panel plugin being a new process, a separate shortcut manager"

Panel plugins don't have to be external processes. It's a one line change to the source and a one line change to a .desktop file to make them internal

Plugins crashed the panel all the time. Only the more complex plugins (like things other than the launcher, or things that do heavy IO) will be external. So, if you have 30 launchers, you won't have 30 pointless processes.

However, if you have the weather plugin, it won't hang the panel if your network is down

Lots of people don't need the shortcut functionality. Moving it out allows them to minimize their desktop overhead (optionally) and makes the WM more stable.